I realized late last week that I haven’t yet posted about the classes I’m taking in this, my final half-semester at Yale School of Management. Two are carrying over from earlier in the semester: my Recording Arts class in the Sound Design program at the Drama School, and my nonprofit law clinic in which we help fledgling organizations get their coveted 501(c)(3) status. Aside from those, I’m taking an ethics class called Leadership & Values that takes a hard look at Milton Friedman’s philosophy of corporate social responsibility, and two independent studies: one, a survey of public policy and the arts for which I’ll create a cultural policy brief for the Arts Council of Greater New Haven; and the other, an evaluation plan for the arts-related programming of a large social service organization based in Austin, TX. In addition, I’m TAing two courses, Managing Organizational Politics and Judgment and Negotiation, and theoretically still leading the Arts & Culture Club and the Yale SOM Philanthropy Conference. It’s a full schedule, with lots of interesting and thought-provoking material for the blog. It all ends Memorial Day, and after that….well, you’ll just have to stay tuned.
In the meantime, here are some interesting articles from the past week:
- The DC Philharmonic, a new orchestra catering to an African-American audience, unfortunately had to postpone its first concerts last weekend due to financial difficulties.
- While we had to fight tooth and nail to get $50 million extra for the NEA’s 300 million constituents, our neighbors to the north are providing a $43.4 million boost for Ontario’s 11.4 million residents along with a two-year, $100 million marquee tourism investment for Canada’s population of 33 million. Creative solutions are great, but solutions can look a lot more creative with some cold, hard cash backing them up.
- There’s a new orchestra festival coming to town (New York City town, that is), and Andrew W. Mellon is footing (much of) the bill.
- So, in case you haven’t found me yet, I’m tweeting these days at @createquity. (I’ll have a more comprehensive post on Twitter next week.) Fellow traveler @bstephenson recently mentioned my name as an arts Twitterer to follow on his podcast page for the Center for Arts Management and Technology at Carnegie Mellon. The podcast is pretty good if you feel like checking it out.
- Juilliard school for low-income kids in trouble? Broad Foundation to the rescue!
- Everybody’s been talking about the Wynton Marsalis speech at Arts Advocacy Day on March 30 – now you can watch the whole thing online.
- Via Tactical Philanthropy, apparently there’s going to be a prime-time drama on NBC called The Philanthropist? What?
- Speaking of philanthropy, there’s been a lot of talk lately about a controversial report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, Criteria for Philanthropy at its Best (pdf). The exchanges have included this epic four–part takedown by Hewlett Foundation President Paul Brest, NCRP’s response, and a more measured take by Alberto Ruesga at White Courtesy Telephone. Thoughts on the NCRP recommendations’ implications for arts organizations?
- Curious – a bank exclusively serving the creative industries. Will be interesting to see what happens with that.
- Marilyn Bergman steps down at ASCAP.
- Your next arts czar is….Kumar? OK, that’s not entirely fair. Kal Penn is a decent actor judging from his work in The Namesake, an excellent movie. And his role in the White House is within the Office of Public Liaison, seemingly the same role to which Kareem Dale was appointed just last month. When are they going to announce the new head of the NEA?
- Want to help the IRS develop a new educational program on nonprofit tax law for graduate degree programs? Check this link out. What I love about this is that the request for comment looks exactly like the instructions for filling out your taxes and is squeezed between a website survey in PDF/hard copy format and “Deletions From Cumulative List of Organizations Contributions to Which are Deductible Under Section 170 of the Code.” Way to be hep to the social media, IRS!